I really haven’t been keeping up with the few TV shows that I enjoy this season. With nearly all the major TV networks hosting on-demand viewing of their shows, as well as other legitimate services such as Hulu and Joost, I thought catching up would be no problem. Boy, was I wrong.

Most popular show only have the previous 3, maybe 5, episodes available for viewing. Great – just want I wanted, to watch a show that is in mid-season with no idea of what is going on. I guess I’ll have to watch the previous episodes elsewhere.
Ok, so maybe I have been following the show and missed the last episode, let me catch up. Here in lies the second problem – new episodes are released 8 days after original airing date. That means if I miss one episode, I am confined to watching the rest of the season online. I guess I’ll have catch up using other means.

The way that network television makes their money is through advertisers, is it not? It’s the same online, which I have no problem with. However, what I do have a problem with is networks airing the most obnoxious, and annoying advertisements. To make it worse, they have no variety – they play the same commercial again and again. The more times you make me watch the stupid Stride Gum commercial, the less I want to sit through this torture.

The TV industry does not get it. They should be using the Internet to supplement their traditional offerings and drive up viewer ship. I cannot even count the number of times my friends have said this season of show X just got amazing, you have to watch it. Instead of being able to catch up and watch the show on TV, I can’t watch the show in any form, and the network loses a viewer.
I hold the belief that the TV industry is afraid that having their shows on the Internet is going to reduce DVD sales. So what? The TV industry should be making more money using the Internet than they were before – if they aren’t, then they are doing it wrong.
Here’s what the TV industry should be doing:

1. Use better, more diverse advertisements for things that matter. No one cares about what going on the Fox Reality Network.
2. Use statistic-gathering methods to find out what users watch, how often, and what advertisements turn them off.
3. Offer at least the most recent season available in its entirety.
4. Release shows after the last time-zone airs the episode. At most, 1 day. Anymore, and it looses its value.
5. Keep up old shows. Just because its no longer in the air does not mean no wants to watch it. By keeping up old shows, you will gain new viewers, and still make money on ads.
6. Don’t bend arms of service providers like Hulu and boxee – it does not matter if they watch Internet content on a computer screen or on a TV screen, as long as they watch it.
7. Offer higher quality video to drive down the incentive to pirate. Advertisers pay premiums for prime time shows and other high viewership time slots – the same should be applied for Internet TV.

The TV industry still thinks it’s a competition between providing content over the Air/Cable/Satellite and the Internet. The reality is that both need to be leveraged against the real competitors – piracy. The harder the TV industry makes it for viewers to access TV shows, the more likely people will pirate episodes, and piracy has become really simple.